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Tired? Getcherself a “Gummint Job”

Forty years ago or so, I very briefly worked in a real “shovel ready” job using a real shovel on some government contract work. First day, the “feddle gummint” inspector came by and told me I was working too hard and to lean on my shovel for a while. True. Ever since then, I’ve looked askance at “gummint workers” and wondered just how hard they really do work and whether anything they do is really something that the “gummint” needs to do at all.

Do note that I know some government functions are necessary and that some of those employed to do essential work actually do work. I’m just not convinced that very much of what the federal government (or even state governments for that matter) claims it needs to do really needs to be done by government at all–or at that level–OR that most of those in government jobs are actually either working or working at anything that should be done at all, or be done by a government worker.

Further disclosure: Three members of my immediate and extended family are arguably “government workers.” One has for all his adult life worked as an employee of the National Parks Service, or some subsidiary or affiliated agency (he’s a real worker, but I have never approached him with a discussion of why I believe the Parks Service is unconstitutional, regardless what the Supreme Court has tortuously reasoned). Another holds down a state government position that is tasked with something that is constitutional under that state’s constitution. Is the work he does essential? No. Is it needed? Arguable. Perhaps. The last is a community employee who does not work directly for any city, county, state or federal agency but whose salary is funded by county, state and even (wrongly, IMO) by federal funds. The work this person does is work the community needs and indeed requires be done.

*shrugs* Some functions are necessary and proper. ALL government action should be at the lowest level possible–both in impact and in funding/supervision (subsidiary and transparent). That is, any necessary and proper task of government that can be funded and performed by a town itself, should NOT be funded or performed by the county or state or federal governments. Any necessary and proper task that cannot be performed at the lowest level possible should be examined carefully to determine whether or not it is indeed BOTH necessary AND proper for government to perform at all. I suspect that any honest examination of the necessary and proper functions of government would reveal that most things being done by government nowadays, at all levels, are neither necessary nor proper for civil government (at any level) to be fooling about with.

Of course, that’s the rub: honest examination. As Cwazy Unka Joe and his Immoderate “Moderator” demonstrated the other night, something approaching at least half of the country is unwilling to be honest about government–unwilling to the point that they have MADE themselves unable to be honest.

Remember, one of the reasons the Founders tried to moderate democracy with many different republican damping mechanisms is, in my restatement,

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”

Just sayin’.

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Anyone want to check my math?

Obamanoids–dupes in general, the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind (A.K.A. “Bylines for Barry”), The Zero’s campaign mouthpieces (TOTUS, Cwazy UNka Joe and all the other usual suspects) and the whole gaggle of leftard loons have invested tons of disingenuity into the meme that Romney doesn’t pay his “fair share” of taxes. Their argument, such as it is, is that his nominal 14-15% income tax rate on his investment income–the sum total of his income–is “less” than the average person pays. Leaving aside the 47% who receive more in benefits from the “feddle gummint” than they pay in taxes, if they pay any income taxes at all, what about that claim?

The corporations Romney receives his investment income have to make a profit. Those profits are distributed after taxes and reinvestment in the business to investors. So, say a company makes $100 in before tax profits. Yeh, yeh, a ridiculously small amount, but one that makes for easy numbers. After paying JUST the federal corporate income taxes, that number is reduced to about $72 available to return to investors who are then taxed a nominal 15% of that. So, assume only one investor, for simplicity. That investor would then receive about $61. All told, the “feddle gummint” has just gobbled up 39% of the income.

Average Joes don’t pay that sort of income tax rate, unless they’re too stupid to be able to use Turbotax and misfigure everything on their own. (ABOVE average–in income and privilege–“Timothys” however Do use Turbotax and fail to properly pay their federal income taxes for years, but the law only applies to the little people.)

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Big Bird’s the Only Issue The Zero Has

And Big Bird is a loser of an “issue”. Aside from Big Bird, all The Zero’s campaign has left is lies. Just a standard response from UNliberal leftists.

Always, always, ALWAYS remember: “slanderer”=”devil”. Literally. (“Devil” is transliterated from Koine: diabolos—>devil. “Diabolos” means slanderer, false accuser, traducer. So, anyone choosing to say The Zero and his co-conspirators are “sons [and daughters] of Satan” could be viewed as making an arguably fair statement. Just sayin’.)

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Don’t Pi** on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining

In the college town where I spent some of the, urm, more interesting years of my life, there was an old (by that time) doctor of a most eccentric bent. Good sawbones; great “bedside manner” with patients. Nice guy. But… strange sense of humor.

Less weirdly, he raised prize-winning roses and always–always–had a rosebud in his label, in a tiny little vase that was concealed behind the lapel of his coat. He also carried a syringe filled with water to keep the tiny lil vase topped up throughout the day.

One day, I was downtown and ran into Dr. X. We stood talking for a bit on a street corner, waiting for the light change. A woman with a lil “yappy dog” was standing on the other side of him. He gave me w twinkled glance, pulled out his syringe and surreptitiously squirted her on the leg. She kicked the dog, we suppressed our laughter and let her precede us across the street on the light change.

Now, that was funny. But having someone piss on one’s leg for real and say, “Oh, it’s just raining” on a clear blue sky day is worse than insulting. Them thar is fightin’ words, bubba.

I’ll not link to the lying bastards, but the Obama campaign is saying they unequivocally ID all campaign donations, so the huge numbers of donations from foreign sources are legal. This from people who decry voter ID as “racist”.

Liars. Throw the bums out.

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Drawbacks of a Long Infancy

Infant product class, that is. eBooks. I read a lot of ’em. So far, very few eBooks seem to take advantage of the medium to expand beyond print format, and many are weaker products than hardcopy books. Here’s a brief blurb of my consumer-of-print viewpoint.

Many books can benefit from maps, tables and other reference materials. With hardcopy books, these are often included, and if not I often have the material to hand (or nearby) to fill the gaps. eBooks that can benefit from such addenda need them even more than print works, because they’re often read in locales where such things are unavailable even to someone like me who has a wide-ranging reference library at hand. Such things should be included in eBooks that would benefit from them, and they should be, at the very least, context sensitive. For example, when maps are called for, scalable, zoomable satellite or aerial maps (with helpful labeling, perhaps) could be included with little more trouble than simple line-drawing maps. Use your imagination to supply supplementary materials lists eBook authors should include. You’ll have to, though, because so far very few authors have used theirs in that manner.

As to those eBooks that are weaker products than corresponding print works. *sigh* One of the worst examples I can think of offhand was a novel written by a very good writer before eBooks had really taken off. I read it expecting not great but good fun. The story was OK, as were the characters, descriptive narrative and dialog, but… he’d apparently just scanned it–or had it scanned–and converted to electronic format and apparently had not even had it proof read. Too many obvious scanning errors ruined enjoyment of the book. But that’s just one of the worst. Self-published, author edited or proofread (or author edited AND proofread) eBooks seem to be about 85% POORLY edited and proofread. Good lord, folks! Execrable grammar, spelling and punctuation just barely scratches the surface of many crap-laden plots, dialog, descriptive narrative and characters crudely drawn in crayon from B-movie central casting descriptions!

Yes, there are a lot of well-written, well-edited/proofread “Indie” published books available, but the numbers of well-written “Indie” books is only because so very much chaff is out there to winnow the well-written books out of. It’s a real pain in the neck (although the pain’s really quite a bit further south of there) to be reading along thinking, “Interesting story–OH CRAP! GETCHER SYNTAX OUTA YOUR ASS!” or “SPELLCHECK, DUMBASS, SPELLCHECK!!” or “WTF! YOU DIDN’T JUST ‘THERE’S’ ME AGAIN! over and over again.

I’m sure both the crap writing and the features blocks will work themselves out in time, though. eBooks are still in a development phase, and some writers, at least, seem to be thinking seriously about some of these things. Thank heavens. *sigh*

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Modern Living

Ordering from Amazon. Placed order w/”2-day shipping” option. Received notice of shipping w/in an hour. By noon, the item was listed as having shipped from a Fedex location about 70 miles from me. Next a.m.? Scanned in at a Fedex location 370 miles from me, though it’d travel more than 400 miles to get here from there via Fedex.

If I’d had direct access to the Amazon Marketplace seller, Imight well have simply driven up and gotten the product, but in that case, paying the extra $3 or $4 (I forget which) for next day delivery… nah, wouldn’t have speeded things up, since item was ordered on Friday. Would probably still have been Monday. And yes, I know Amazon said it’d be here by Tuesday, but it’ll be Monday, if my experiences w/Fedex are any guide.

Still… it will have traveled almost 800 miles to get here from 70 miles away. Something’s just wrong there. It’s almost as if it were coming via the Post Office.* Continue reading “Modern Living”

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Texas Is a Bastard?

“They say that Virginia is the mother of Texas. We never knew who the father was, but we kinda suspected Tennessee.”–Tex Ritter (so don’t blame me, OK?)

*heh*

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Too Kind by Far

The kindest I’d have been in his place would have been, “Urm, dude, your pants are on fire.”

Next time, take the mittens off, mmK? Bare knuckles would be fine with me.

“More? You want MORE?”

OK. The debate, summarized by Jim Treacher, with metacomment by moi:

0bambi vs. Godzilla

http://youtu.be/ZpBkc2jK-6w

Aaaannd, Tweet of the Night:

“Some people eat when they get depressed. I hope Michelle put Bo outside for the night.”

*snerk*

(No, I don’t know who made the graphic. It appeared on FB and I’m just too butt lazy to spend the time and effort tracking it down. If someone sees this and says, “Hey! That’s mine!” then fine, you’ll get the credit. Until someone else says the same thing. *heh*)

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Confessions of a Pop Drinker

Yeh, yeh, I drink pop. Soda. Whatever. Not so much as I used to, but I drink the stuff. At least I no longer drink Pepsi, long my preferred cola (never really did develop a taste for Coca-Cola; it always came across as too sweet to me, for one thing). I stopped drinking sugar and corn syrup sweetened pops long ago, and in fact even went off carbonated soft drinks entirely for a while, since artificial sweeteners just didn’t make the grade for me, although I’d partaken of them for some time under a mistaken impression they’d help me control my middle age spread (they didn’t seem to).

A couple of years ago, though, I discovered a cola that’s not only sugar free but tastes better to my palate than my old fav, Pepsi: Continue reading “Confessions of a Pop Drinker”